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[drdoug]

My telephone line to the exchange does not go through one of those green roadside cabinets, as most UK people's do, but connects up in the street to a special deluxe pressurised air-filled cable that goes direct to the exchange

Comments

[barakta]

Can you threaten to take BT to ADR? That costs them and they HATE it. I don't think it's acceptable to decline to accept a complaint until a fix has happened, and I can't see how that is legal to enforce. They aren't providing a service or dealing with the issue and it has been weeks which is completely unacceptable in 2015 ffs. They should be providing all affected customers with some alternative access and funding it

[thekumquat]

Would Ofcom be appropriate?
Where's the local MP in all this? Hundreds of local people and businesses unable to communicate and at risk of closure?

Asking the MP to address the issue with relevant Ministers always focuses attention (cc the original organisation)...

Best of luck! We moved to Virgin (cable phone and internet) on the grounds that would at least be only one company to deal with and they couldn't be worse than BT, and it might stop all the junk mail trying to get us to sign up. It's adequate but not great, their customer service is equally lacking, and we still get the same amount of junk mail.

[drdoug]

I did look at Ofcom, and so far as I could make out they won't listen to you until either you have an 'impasse' letter from BT saying you've exhausted their procedures, or 90 days have passed since your complaint was raised. If they would count me trying and failing to raise a complaint as the date to start the clock, that's still November before Ofcom want to even start considering it. Might well be worth pursuing if I get nowhere, but it's not going to solve the immediate pressing problem which is what I most care about.

Contacting the MP is a genius idea that I may well pursue ... when I have the connectivity to do so!

[drdoug]

Can you threaten to take BT to ADR?

AIUI, for ADR, both parties have to agree to make it binding - or indeed happen at all. A court can encourage that to happen by threatening to take note of whether you engage in ADR in good faith or not, but a court case is years off here.

Is there any merit in checking out Virgin et al?

Virgin is the big example of a telco who run their own entirely independent infrastructure. But they don't serve my area.

All the companies who do serve our area use Openreach. But at least I can switch away to BT Retail to someone who has a clue and - as you say - is better able to LART Openreach.

In fairness, I suspect the underlying problem here is (a) it's a bloody hard fix, and (b) it is quite possibly mired in contractual negotiations about who's responsible - by the sound of it, it wasn't Openreach who put it in but a different contractor to Openreach. No excuse for such poor service, ofcourse.

[babysimon]

But investigating Zen's pricing, I discovered they've had new broadband products out since May, offering unlimited ADSL for less money. (I'm currently on a 200 Gb pcm cap.)

Oh. So am I. Gosh. Well, thanks for the heads-up.

(And general sympathy about Openreach uselessness.)

[drdoug]

Ta. I was shocked at how shifty Zen were about it when I complained. Previously, like eveyone else, I've found them wonderful.

[mistdog]

I was with Plusnet for quite a few years, and if you're looking for somewhere with better customer service I really wouldn't recommend them. It was poor customer service (and their switch to a premium rate phone number for support) that drove me away from them.

I recommend www.thephone.coop for telephone+broadband. Always helpful and friendly (it's a small operation), and never pull "rip off existing customers" moves like that due to being a co-operative.

[drdoug]

Ooh, thanks, that's well worth a look. And worth knowing about Plusnet.

[emmy_mallow]

We are with Zen and their customer service has been really good. We also switched from BT to Zen at work and had great customer service there. I can't fault Zen at all.

[drdoug]

Yeah, I was a very happy long-term Zen broadband customer for many years ... until this latest email when they were shifty about how they totally were going to get round to telling existing customers about the better deal, sorry if you don't have that particular communication yet or maybe missed it ...